A North Wales man who is one of the few living survivors of a Nazi deportation camp has told of his gruelling wartime experiences.

Roy Mottram-Smale, who lives in Connah’s Quay, gave the Daily Post an insight into the terrifying period during World War II which changed his family forever.

Last month, the 80-year-old returned to the Westerbork deportation camp in Holland for a solemn ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of its liberation.

He read out the names of 300 people who perished in the camp where he and his mother endured extreme hunger and cold during the harsh winter of 1944.

A total of 102,000 prisoners, including Jews, Gypsies, members of the Dutch resistance and the celebrated diarist Anne Frank, were sent from the camp in cattle trains to their deaths, mainly at Auschwitz where they were killed in the gas chambers.

Roy, who is originally from Stockport, had moved to a town near Rotterdam with his parents Henry and Emma May in 1938, after his father took a job at a company producing chamois leather.

In May 1940, the Germans invaded Holland and his life was turned upside down forever.

Recalling the air raids, Roy said: “I woke that morning very, very frightened. I thought I was having a nightmare because of this constant roaring sound.

“I drew the curtains and for as far as the eye could see the sky was black with aircraft, some of which were tumbling out of the sky.”

Four days later, the town surrendered to German troops, and within less than a fortnight his father was taken away to a camp in Schoorl.

“That was the last time we saw him until 1945,” said Roy, who was removed from the family home along with his mother.

They were sent to live in poor conditions in a town called Apeldoorn.

Roy said: “The SS came into school one day and grabbed the hand of the teacher.

“While they were dragging him out of the classroom, he said ‘what about the children?’. For his troubles he got a gun butt in his face.

“The blood spilled all over and half the children were screaming. That was the last time we saw him. He was a Jewish teacher and was deported to Auschwitz.”

Roy said he suffered badly from malnutrition at the time, and his mother’s struggle to find food led her to sign them up for what the Nazis called a “repatriation programme”.

The pair were put on a train in December 1944 and sent to Westerbork camp, where they were housed in Barracks No 4.

Roy said: “It was like a huge shed. It was very flimsy and so cold. I’ve never been so cold in all my life.

“It can be easy to be too graphic but just imagine 100 people with a couple of toilets when all the water is frozen. I couldn’t stomach it.”

Roy recalls deportations taking place every Tuesday, but is also convinced that some prisoners were killed and incinerated on camp, particularly after befriending a young Jewish boy who mysteriously disappeared.

He said: “I think it may now explain why the chimney periodically smoked and a horrendous smell used to descend over the camp.

“I can’t prove it but I have the feeling this did in fact happen.”

He and his mother spent about a month at the camp before a train journey “from absolute hell” took them to a camp in Libernau in Bavaria.

It took eight days due to numerous stops while the damaged railway was fixed, and the prisoners were left with no food and water.

They were finally ushered into an elegant building – a monastery housing an insane asylum – and spent six months there until the camp was liberated by French troops.

The camp was later run by the Americans and Roy remembers how it felt “like a dream” to eat a huge amount of food at a US airbase before he and his mother were flown to Britain in July 1945.

The pair were then reunited with Henry, who had been a prisoner in Poland but returned to Stockport before them via a camp in Stockholm.

Sadly, it was not to be a fairytale reunion, and the relationship between Henry, his son and his wife never truly recovered.

He remained distant until his death at the age of 57 more than a decade later.

Roy said: “It was like meeting a complete stranger. Their marriage never really worked. They never got divorced but they separated on numerous occasions.

“My saviour was my maternal grandfather, who became my surrogate father. He taught me to speak English as I grew up speaking Dutch.”

Soon after returning to the UK, Roy moved to Wrexham when his father landed a job at a local factory.

He lived in Ruthin for more than 25 years before moving to Connah’s Quay, where his beloved mother lived with him until her death in 2009 at the age of 100.

The father-of-two worked as a teacher in Rhyl before becoming a wine shipper and Spanish wine consultant.

A former teaching colleague encouraged Roy to share his experiences, and he is now writing a book which will describe his remarkable life for the first time.

He said: “I tended to keep what happened low-profile, but he felt that it was a story that ought to be told. When I started writing about it, it was cathartic in some ways. The words just seemed to flow.

“I’m very near the end now. It just wants tidying up. I’m hoping to publish in mid-summer.”

Any publishers interested in Roy’s book can email winspa@btinternet.com.